The one-sidedness of the history of the Black Panthers was the one that really woke me up. For a long time, I had only known them from Forest Gump. I didn’t know more until much later.

The public education system in America doesn’t cover domestic violence against/by the state and state allies. There are some region exceptions but even those often don’t hit the full range of violent protest.

We’re taught about the labor movement and civil rights movement primarily through the lens of peaceful or passive resistance. They’re frequently presented alongside figures like Gandhi, who himself has had is image simplified and white-washed.

I didn’t know what Tulsa was until someone mentioned it online in a video essay. There is so much that I know only because the internet was open and history nerds started making youtube video essays and podcasts. Even then, I only know about things like the 1934 Minneapolis strike because I was in a construction worker’s union.

What an incredibly self-centered statement. To question and even deny someone’s care for something just because it’s not the way you want them to is just callous and cruel. Nobody is obligated to care the same way you do, and Rian obviously cares for the franchise and has said as much, even saying he’d come back for more despite the extreme reaction he’s gotten so far. Nobody puts up with shit like that for something they don’t care about deeply and that should be welcomed and encouraged. Accusations like yours won’t keep a fandom or franchise healthy - it just pushes everyone reasonable away and leaves the bitter, angry leftovers that nobody wants to touch.

I really don’t see it. I’ll reflect on it.

Rian made a fun movie. He did not make a good middle trilogy movie. When taken as the center piece that it is, his choices mirror Abram’s choices with Star Trek. That is, similar and familiar but lacking a deeper understanding of the property. The Star Trek movies are also mostly good. Understanding the deep nuance isn’t needed to make a good movie in a franchise, but it does help inform structure. I flat out refuse to blame Abrams for Rian’s movie. I’ve said way more on this than is needed and obviously we’re not going to agree beyond the fact that the squeals are bad. And that’s fine. I’m not an angry and bitter fan. I’m just profoundly disappointed. like many were.

but I am getting older and I understand that the way I want things to be isn’t how they are. I just won’t be silent about it in the spaces where we’re supposed to have discussion.

random point of fact, I checked out these movies Rotten Tomatoes scores last night and it’s interesting how well regarded they are. So either, there’s corporate thumbs on the voting scales or the general public don’t care as much about these complaints. Either way. My desire to be thorough in my thoughts may have painted me as one of those obsessive fans that rages at people online. That isn’t me. Passionate, yes, but not so much so that I will lash out at people for having different opinions. - maybe my blood sugar is just better balanced atm.

Into Darkness had a chance to do something fun and different with Khan. It choose to play ‘member berries’ when it didn’t really make sense. If it was a ‘what-if’ universe I would have enjoyed a Khan-Kirk team up but they chose to make him so one-dimensional.

but I did like the 1st one and the 3rd one.

Totally Agree, I just blame The Last Jedi for that.

Edit:

aaaand. I also blame the fandom.

Rose was part of the story by the end of The Last Jedi. Whatever opinions fans had about her sudden appearance, I take personal offense that Disney caved and relegated her to the shadows for Rise of a Skywalker, replacing her with another love interest for Finn. That’s just bad story telling and kinda spineless. The character and the actor deserved better.

That added to the narrative whiplash and tone shift in the trilogy and it 100% didn’t have to be that way.

Agree to disagree. I don’t begrudge VIII as a movie on it’s own. In the theater I had an okay time and unlike the toxic fans I at least grew to appreciate things like Rose, but you can’t consider VIII in a vacuum because it was never meant to be consumed that way. It’s the center piece in a trilogy.

I would argue that the fact that these interpretations can be rendered from the movie alone, means that we aren’t dealing with a true Abrams style mystery box, and that even if we were, the general speculation about them doesn’t leave us scratching our heads wondering about a narrative direction for these characters.

It’s not a polar bear on a tropical island. In the context of the Star Wars universe most of Abram’s choices have implications.

Those Implications where ignored by Johnson. It’s misguided to blame Abrams for trying to leave questions that mirror the original film. If VIII had built on any of it, at all, we likely wouldn’t be having this discussion. We would be talking about how VIII took the threads of familiar from the previous movie and actually made it good.

It’s not on Abrams for Johnson’s narrative left turn. At release The Force Awakens was incredibly well received. It wasn’t until after VIII dropped that people really started to tear into Abrams for not keeping narrative control, and deflecting the blame from Johnson onto Abrams.

I find that outrageous.

Any collaborative story teller worth their salt can draw the through lines for some of these characters and tropes. It’s not on Abrams for choosing to leave the story about space wizards open ended on what is the opening note of a familiar trilogy. The worst thing you could say about the Force Awakens is that it plays too safe. Which, for an opening movie isn’t a problem unless the rest of the trilogy sucks.

I don’t think it would have been perfect if Abrams held the wheel for all three films. It’s the nature of fandom to nitpick and complain, but it at least would have been consistent. This trilogy is a narrative mess and it got that way because of Johnson having no skill as a collaborative story teller and likely little love for Star Wars.

Johnson did to Star Wars what Abrams did to Star Trek.

Tell me about it. Do you know how long it took me to watch Knives Out?

I would ask you to consider why Yoda did the same? beyond the obvious of Palatine trying to kill him? Wasn’t Kylo/Snoke trying to do the same to Luke? Yoda was camped on a dark side nexus or something IIRC from the various sources.

but self exile doesn’t need to mean surly and in video game media we have seen Luke running around doing a bunch of stuff outside of the eyes of the new republic. What reason could obi-wan have for letting vader kill him? fans ask in the 70s after leaving the theater.

It’s not about it being a self exile. It’s about the portrayal of his personality and beliefs in that exile.

I can’t argue the quality of the prequels with indifference. I was too young when they dropped to hate them. I will say that they’re flawed and episode III is good because I watched the Clone Wars. The prequels weren’t great, but the sequels were essentially sabotaged by a proud director.

Because his touching the force woke him form his programing. Kylo sensed it. I didn’t say he was going to be a good Jedi. but his competency was on par with Kylo in a way that Rey’s was not. Rey was outshining both of them. Her whole deal was set to be that she had raw power but didn’t want to play either side.

There is a general rule in film making and story telling. You don’t do something without purpose. Finn holding the lightsaber was signalling, yes. It was narrative foreshadowing. checkov’s gun given weight by the promotions for the movie which had Finn holding the lightsaber. In the film, He didn’t just hold a light saber or use it quickly for some one-off maneuver. Finn wielded the lightsaber. He later stepped up to Kylo and got thrashed, giving the character a path and motivation to improve. Rey was going to have her own light saber eventually, maybe even a saber staff.

I swear people just don’t have media literacy anymore. John Boyega was very vocally pissed by the end of the trilogy. Finn spent all of IX trying to tell Rey something. It’s been mostly considered that he was trying to tell her that he was force sensitive. A fact we likely would have learned in the previous movie but we never heard at all in the trilogy. Last I heard he was only willing to come back because Dave Filoni spoke to him personally. Even after that he might be getting shafted by behind the scenes politics.

Disney is still trying to fix what Johnson did to Star Wars in cinema.

Abram’s style works much better in VII than it does in something like Lost or later Fringe. Abram’s is on record saying he is a Star Wars fan. He made a love letter to Star Wars. Whatever flaws it has it still sets tone and implies things about characters. Finn is force sensitive. Kylo can be saved. The main rivals were going to be Kylo and Finn with Rey being something of an Aakin between them. Father, brother, sister style. Snoke was where it was leading. With all three, Kylo, Rey, and Finn finding their own connections in the force.

Was it a lot of rehash? yes, but that only means that it was a parallel to the first movie. It set a familiar tone to take us somewhere new and complex. VIII takes a left turn on all of it and decides to do camp and expectation subversion and ruin any hope of telling a compelling and well-written story.

100% this it was Rian Johnson’s inability to work from someone else’s starting point.

To add to your list. Finn. Johnson butchered Finn’s story so much that the actor vocally said he would never take another Star Wars job.

He was supposed to be a Luke analog. He was supposed to be force sensitive. He was supposed to confront Phasma. The first movie projected so many hints at the path many of these characters were going to take in the trilogy. There was a parallel to Finn and Rey. Finn’s force awakening literally breaks his mind control and we see Kylo sense him!

Johnson came in and burned all of those threads.

I accepted a lot about Episode VIII, but the ruin of the Finn stuff is where it actually became unforgivable for me.

I’ll die on this hill. JJ Abrams didn’t ruin Star Wars. He just didn’t do anything new with Star Wars. Rian Johnson ruined Star Wars. He was unwilling to yes-and any of the mystery boxes and plot threads Abrams set up in The Force Awakens and essentially ruined the entire trilogy by burning any plot that could have happened in the third film.

If nothing else, the complete disrespect to Finn’s implied arc was unforgivable. That boy was going to be a Jedi.

I have a lot of hope for the Slate. I’m worried about a dozen different things happening to it as a new company. I wish I could see their financials but it’s a catch-22. If I can see their sales numbers it’s more likely some big shitty company tries to hostile take over them (because they’d be publicly traded.) Getting one would be cool. Getting one and then having the company shutter (or get eaten by Amazon), not so much.

I do actually want a truck. I like to thrift shop and do home projects. being able to move furniture and construction materials would be nice. Too bad they’re stupid big, full of tech garbage, and 30K. I just want a little ford ranger or something. There’s no reason it should cost as much as it does when the only people using it are tradesmen and posers. A truck is meant to be the work horse of vehicles. Somehow they convinced enough people to pay a premium price for a thing that has near no versatility.

That’s a pretty chill thing to say if you’re among chill people.

but then, if they were chill you wouldn’t need to say it at all.

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